if senator mcconnell and speaker boehner don't bend, do you still believe the president should go right up to the brink and over the fiscal cliff? >> here we are, our country has a tremendous debt and deficit problem. we also have a challenge in making sure that we educate our workforce, we need to make sure we care for our veterans who need that care today. we need to have research and we need to be able to compete in a global marketplace, those investments are important. everyone who has looked at this, including the supercommittee that i served on, said we need to have revenue as part of the solution to this problem as well as looking at entitlements and spending cuts. what has been the missing ingredient in congress to date is revenue and make sure that it's fairly distributed and the wealthy pay their fair share. that's what we face right now. if our republican counterparts can step forward with that revenue piece we'll be able to find a solution. >> and if not, go off a cliff? >> well, clearly, we have the ability between now and the end of the year to not go off the cliff, but we